Football
Stephan Uersfeld, Germany correspondent 5y

Bayern Munich's Karl-Heinz Rummenigge hits out at Bild, others over coverage, cites 'false facts'

Bayern Munich have sent legal letters to the publishing house that operates some of Germany's biggest newspapers over recent coverage of the club.

President Uli Hoeness, CEO Karl-Heinz Rummenigge and sporting director Hasan Salihamidzic held a news conference on Friday at which Rummenigge said Bayern would no longer accept the reporting.

"For your information, we would like to tell you that we sent two judicial cease and desist letters to Springer publishing house in the past weeks," Rummenigge said.

"Another cease and desist order was served yesterday. In the future, we will not stop at cease and desist letters but will also demand the right of reply."

Springer is behind titles including Bild, Die Welt and the weekly Sport Bild.

Rummenigge cited recent reports that the Bayern leadership had deemed Jadon Sancho not good enough for the club to intensify efforts to sign him, as well as reports about Corentin Tolisso's cruciate ligament injury, saying they were false.

"I can see the concentrated power of Springer here in the first row," he said. "My dear sirs, please feel specially addressed because we will look at your things more closely in the future.

"To cut a long story short, from this day on we will protect our player, our coach and also the club."

When Salihamidzic was asked by a Springer reporter whether he could deny having considered England international Sancho, Rummenigge responded.

He said: "We have served the answer through our media lawyer, and that's why it's answered."

Salihamidzic said: "If that's what a source told you, you must dismiss this source."

When another reporter asked what Hoeness had meant when he accused the German media of "disrespectful reporting," Rummenigge replied: "When false facts are sold. They are consistently sold by certain publishing houses. Only yesterday, we received a mail from Bild addressed to Hasan Salihamidzic."

Explaining that the mail had been an inquiry about a rumour, he said: "Those are all untrue facts. And, right now, you get the impression they want to drag us down a bit because we've been up there too long."

A reporter said it was "normal journalistic procedure to ask a sporting director about commenting on a rumour" and Rummenigge responded: "We did not make any comments, and the question is answered."

Hoeness added: "Many mails with question which are merely a joke are sent. Stories are just created. Do you get that?"

Springer used Bild to respond to the news conference, with a headline that hit out at "Bayern bosses' absurd bashing."

Bayern have not won in four competitive games and have picked up one point from their last three Bundesliga matches, dropping to sixth in the table.

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